Friday, June 15, 2007

Ma Ying-jeou on the Seven Waves of Immigration to Taiwan

Roland at ESWN, who never provides translations of output from the pro-democracy side here in Taiwan, translates Ma Ying-jeou's long essay in the China Times on the seven waves of immigration to Taiwan. Soong incorrectly identifies Ma as Chairman of the KMT (that's Wu Po-hsiung, Roland). Ma is the KMT's presidential candidate. Ma concludes:

Yet all these symbolic signs about clashes over provincial origins and government authorities coming in from the outside no longer have any ability to explain contemporary society in Taiwan. When the villages of Mei Nong have numerous foreign spouses living there and the rural villages of central Taiwan have Filipina maids shopping and bargaining for prices in the traditional markets, who cares about what happened sixty years ago?

For the younger generation who are under 30 or 40 years old, they no longer ask about provincial origin when they first meet each other; instead they only ask which city in Taiwan you come from. Yet the political figures remain divorced from this reality and continue to bicker over the ancient "false issue." They are merely trying to protect their own interests ...

The essay is a bit of propaganda designed to feed the KMT's claim that identity conflicts in Taiwan are the result of democratic politics..Ironically, Ma's position as KMT presidential candidate is the result, of course, of the KMT's own pro-mainlander policies -- being a mainlander, Ma appeals to the Deep Blue mainlander core of the party, in a way that a Taiwanese cannot. Ma's whole political career has been the result of his being a mainlander. Were he a Taiwanese like his rival Wang Jyn-ping, he would never have been permitted to be the KMT presidential candidate......in other words, this entire essay is an exercise in arrant, rank hypocrisy, hijacking the laudable yearning for unity here in the service of his own anti-Taiwan political goals. Revolting.

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